


Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Sisterhood of Karn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24525127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: After the Doctor escapes from Judoon Maximum Security, she discovers a message for her and Clara from an unlikely sender, making an even more unlikely offer: to free Clara from the prison of being timelocked. But is the sender to be trusted? Is the offer as good as it seems? And what exactly does 'freeing' Clara mean?
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Comments: 75
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I’ve been super excited to share this one with you all! It’ll be updated every Saturday. Enjoy!

The Doctor wanders into the console room of Clara’s TARDIS, one hand towelling off her hair and the other clutching a piece of jam-topped toast, which she’s taking large, uninhibited bites out of at frequent intervals. She’s wearing one of her usual t-shirts in a lurid shade of pink coupled with turquoise joggers, and there’s a streak of jam down the t-shirt already. Clara thinks for a moment about asking her to use a plate, before deciding that there are possibly bigger, more important things to worry about at the present moment, and instead she holds her arm out to her partner, smiling as the Doctor crosses the distance between them, shoving the last of her toast into her mouth and then resting her damp hair against Clara’s shoulder.

Clara loves how tactile this Doctor is. It’s a departure from what she’d been used to before in the Time Lord’s Scottish incarnation; then, Clara had become acclimatised to their reluctant hugs and reticent touches; things that had once been openly rejected but had slowly, slowly become normal over the course of their relationship. Well, as normal could be expected when the person being hugged or having their hand held had been a two-thousand-year-old gangly Scottish alien, which is to say: not very.

This Doctor is different though. This Doctor rests her hand and arm on Clara’s casually as they sit side by side of an evening; sweeps her into nonchalant hugs without reason; wraps an arm around her waist as they pilot the TARDIS. This Doctor doesn’t mind if the team are present, or strangers are looking at them; she continues to treat Clara with a warm reverence that Clara finds heart-warming and comfortable; continues to press quiet kisses to Clara’s cheek or reach for her hand with a reassuring squeeze. It’s different, yes, but it’s nice; it makes her glow when the Doctor takes her hand on a space station or kisses her cheek while the team discuss their dinner plans. It makes her feel special, and wanted, and loved.

And it’s not forced; it’s all concertedly natural. It comes to the Doctor as easily as breathing or saving planets; the Time Lady isn’t making a deliberate effort to be so tactile. Yet it still makes Clara’s heart skip a metaphorical beat when their skin comes into direct contact; still makes her feel privileged and special when other people stare at them with envy or fondness. During their time apart, she’d felt the absence of the embraces and little touches as keenly as a wound; the yearning for physical contact sitting alongside her yearning for the Doctor’s companionship, and the constant, ceaseless aching in her chest as she’d thought of the distance between them.

“I missed you,” Clara murmurs. The words don’t seem adequate to convey precisely how much she has yearned for the Doctor during their long separation, but the Time Lady seems to know. She always knows; always intuits precisely what Clara needs, and the Time Lady lets her towel fall to the floor as she nuzzles more completely into Clara, a spreading damp patch soaking into Clara’s jumper as she does so. “I…”

“I know,” the Doctor says softly, wrapping her other arm around Clara and pulling her into a proper hug, and as her arms settle around Clara, she allows some of the tension and anxiety she has carried with her over the previous months to dissipate, safe in the knowledge that the Doctor is once again safe, and back where she belongs. “I know. I know. I’m here now; alright? I’m here.”

Clara buries her face in the Doctor’s chest, taking long, shaking breaths and wishing fervently that the Doctor had her usual smell; engine oil, beeswax, and camomile. Instead, she smells of the little bottles of products from Clara’s bathroom, vanilla and hibiscus and peach, and they’re pleasant enough scents, but they’re not what Clara craves. She wants normality; wants familiarity; wants the usual. She lets out a small involuntary whimper of protest, and the Doctor’s hands come to rest on the back of her neck, offering silent reassurance as her fingertips stroke lazy patterns against Clara’s skin.

“Thank you,” the Doctor tells her quietly, resting her forehead against Clara’s, and the words are spoken with such quiet sincerity that Clara feels embarrassed at once. “For getting me out.”

“I’m sorry,” Clara counters at once, guilt flooding through her system, and she turns her face away, shame coursing through her irrationally in response to the Doctor’s words. “I’m sorry… it took me so long to find you… you were in there…”

“Hey,” the Doctor says firmly, settling her finger under Clara’s chin and turning her head so that their eyes meet again. “Don’t be daft. It’s a maximum security prison. It’s not meant to be easy to find, but you managed it. You found me. You got me out. And I’m here now.”

“But you were in there f-for…” Clara, to her great embarrassment, bursts into tears. Great, shuddering sobs rack her body as she breaks away from the Doctor’s touch and looks over at the console, shame burning through her, and she flicks a few switches and checks a couple of dials in a bid to regain her composure. She’d resolved not to do this; not to show the Doctor the anguish that she’d felt during their time apart. She’d wanted to be brave and brash, and yet now as tears spill down her cheeks, she knows her resolution had been for naught. “Months, you were in there, and I just… god, I couldn’t even… I just…”

“Clara.” The word is spoken with such patience and calm that Clara stops her restless fiddling at once, looking at the Doctor with reluctance and swiping her sleeve over her cheeks. “You got me out. That’s all that matters to me. You got me out, and you got me back to you. I thought… I really thought…” the Doctor’s hands start to tremble, but she shoves them into her pockets before continuing: “For a while in there, I was convinced I’d never see you again.”

“Impossible Girl, remember?” Clara mumbles, pulling her partner back to her and settling her hand against the Doctor’s cheek, skimming her thumb over the skin and watching the Time Lady’s gaze soften. “And I’m not going anywhere, daft woman, unless it’s to do any more prison breaks.”

“Well, that’s good news,” the Doctor grins cheekily as she continues: “But I’d like to avoid prisons for a good long time.”

“You always say that, and you always end up in them,” Clara notes, arching her eyebrows in polite disbelief, remembering at least ten – arguably more minor – incarcerations in the recent past alone. “It’s like a skill.”

“Is it my fault that I’m inherently very arrestable?”

“Maybe. Maybe you just look good in handcuffs,” Clara smirks, and the Doctor retrieves her discarded towel from the floor and swats her with it gently. “Hey!”

“I don’t know _what_ you’re suggesting, Miss Oswald,” the Doctor notes, settling her towel around her neck. “But I’ll have you know that I’m usually _extremely_ good at escaping from places.”

“Except Judoon prisons.”

“Except Judoon prisons,” the Doctor acquiesces, wrinkling her nose. “They knew what they were doing, those prison architects. Blimey. Talk about grim and depressing.”

“Well, it’s hardly going to be fun, is it? It’s prison. You’re meant to… I don’t know, think about your sins and repent, or something. Or is that church? Either way, you’re meant to reflect and repent, at any rate.”

“Still. Time passing slowly in the right order… very boring. Very not me.”

“Welcome to the reality of being human,” Clara grins, reaching over and ruffling the Doctor’s still-damp hair. It’s longer than Clara’s ever seen it, falling just below the shoulders in loose waves, and even wet, Clara can tell that most of the blonde has faded. It’s different, certainly, but not unpleasant, and she twists a lock of it around her finger, watching it hold its wave as she releases it. “I like this, by the way. You should keep it.”

The Doctor wrinkles her nose again, lifting a curl up and frowning at it as though it’s a particularly difficult equation to be solved. “I’m not sure. It’s getting in the way.”

“Try it out. Road test it.”

“Roads are too mundane for my liking. Can I TARDIS-test it?”

“Sounds more fun,” Clara concurs. “Am I allowed to plait it and play with it and stick butterfly clips in it?”

“I… suppose so?” the Doctor looks pained at the mere suggestion, which only makes it all the more appealing. “Under duress, I might let you.”

“If I plait it, it won’t get in your face,” Clara notes smugly. “So that’s a definite advantage.”

“This is true,” the Doctor sighs, ruffling it again absentmindedly. “Can you do it like Ya-”

She breaks off mid-sentence, and Clara frowns as the Doctor lets out a little cry of despair at some unvoiced thought. “Doctor?” she asks worriedly, as the Time Lady pulls away from her and circles the console with a slightly manic expression, crouching and searching underneath the controls when she seems unable to locate it. “What’s…”

“Your phone,” the Doctor says desperately, looking up at Clara and subconsciously miming the universal symbol for ‘phone’, as though Clara might need a visual prompt. “Where’s your phone?”

“What do you want my phone for?”

“The team!” the Doctor says, eyes wide and panicked, still looking around for the offending device. “Oh, god, they must think I-”

“They don’t think anything,” Clara tells her calmly, sticking her hands in her pockets, feeling the warm, familiar weight of her phone and resolving not to let the Doctor near it. The last time she’d done so, all her photos had been deleted, and it had taken a sizeable amount of cajoling to have the Doctor restore them. “I called them this morning and told them I was breaking you out.”

“You… what?”

“We’ve got a WhatsApp group. I’ve been updating them every few days. They’ve been worried senseless about you, you know.”

Clara neglects to mention that she’d messed up her dates, so that by the time she’d initially managed to get hold of Yaz, the team had become entirely, morosely convinced that something had gone horribly wrong on Gallifrey, and that the Doctor was dead. She neglects to mention sitting in Graham’s front room, trying to look anywhere but at the little shrine they’d made for the Doctor, although the joy on their faces when she’d imparted that the Doctor was still alive had been electrifying. She thinks fondly of the hope in their voices this morning when she’d told them that today was the day; thinks about their inevitable happiness when she tells them that the Doctor has regained her liberty and is back to bouncing around the universe like a hyperactive spaniel.

“Oh,” the Doctor tangibly relaxes as she realises her friends are taken care of, and Clara feels a rush of affection for her partner. “How are they?”

“Other than worried? Alright, I think. Yaz took it hard; that crush on you hasn’t abated.”

“She does not have a-”

“How long did it take you to notice I was flirting with you?”

“Urm,” the Doctor blinks hard, chewing on her lip as she considers the question. “About three years. Why?”

“So, you’d know if she had a crush on you, right? Since you’re the expert?”

“Shut up,” the Doctor mumbles, her cheeks flushing. “She…”

“They’ve all missed you. I haven’t had the chance to update them, but they’ll be so excited to see you again. Not just yet, though.”

“Why…”

“I want some time with you first,” Clara admits shyly, feeling foolish even as she speaks the words aloud. “And I know that once I tell them, they won’t want to be wait; they’ll want to see you immediately. I don’t blame them for that; god knows, I’m not the most patient person in the universe, but… just for a little while, I want it to be just us.”

The Doctor smiles softly then, circling the console and entwining her fingers with Clara’s with tenderness. “Why don’t I go and finish getting ready, and then we could do something, just the two of us? We could take your bike out on the track… or go for a picnic in the orchard.”

“I like those ideas,” Clara muses, letting the Doctor tug her towards their bedroom, having to almost run to keep up with the Time Lady’s over-excited strides. Taking a seat on the bed, she watches as the Doctor vigorously towels her hair off for the final time and then rakes her fingers through it haphazardly, before discarding the towel on the floor and peeling off her t-shirt, dropping it in a similar fashion. The Time Lady begins rifling through drawers, eventually locating a clean t-shirt, and as she straightens up and starts pulling it on, she freezes, her eyes drawn to something atop Clara’s dresser.

“What?” Clara asks, trying not to laugh. The Doctor has frozen with one arm through the sleeve of her shirt, and the lopsided effect is disconcerting. “What is it?”

“Where…” the Doctor begins, pointing to a translucent red cube sitting innocuously beside a vase of fresh pink tulips, then finishing tugging on her t-shirt without taking her eyes off of it. “…did you get that?”

“Oh, that,” Clara frowns at the cube, trying to remember. She’d grown used to it over the previous few months; it has sat on her dresser, occasionally being dusted, but otherwise untouched. “It appeared shortly after you _dis_ appeared. Knocked on the door of the ship. It’s a hypercube, isn’t it? It wouldn’t do anything, though, I tried everything; figured it was a dud.”

“I don’t think it’s a dud,” the Doctor breathes, picking it up, and at her touch, it bursts into life, a dramatic voice beaming around the room:

_We have solved the problem. Bring us the girl and we can fix her._

“But that’s…” Clara furrows her brow. She knows that voice; she’s been chastised by that voice before.

“Ohila,” the Doctor’s expression hardens as she supplies the name. “High Priestess of the Sisterhood of Karn.”

“What does she mean, ‘solved the problem’?”

“She means… “ the Doctor looks up at her then, and her expression is agonised. “She means you.”

There’s a long, terse pause. Ohila can’t mean… she couldn’t possibly…

“Me?” Clara asks in a small voice, breaking the silence and wondering aloud: “But how can she have… how can they… ‘solve the problem’?”

“Well, Gallifrey is in ruins,” the Doctor says with a casual shrug that Clara knows disguises a deep, raw agony. “So _they_ can’t send you back to Trap Street, but maybe the Sisterhood have worked it out. It’s nonsense. Absolute nonsense. As if I’m going to let them… as if you’re going to…”

“I don’t think that’s what they mean,” Clara says slowly, hardly daring to breathe as she clings to her optimism, delicate as it is. “They wouldn’t have said ‘fix me’ if they meant sending me back.”

“Of course that’s what they mean!” the Doctor snaps, and Clara jumps at the sudden change in tone. “You don’t understand the Sisterhood. They want to retain the equilibrium of the universe; they want to keep the status quo. You’re an anomaly; don’t you remember what Ohila said to me on Gallifrey? That I’d gone too far; that I’d broken every code?”

“‘Hope,’” Clara quotes from memory, a shiver passing through her at the words, and suddenly she’s back in the Cloisters, confused and scared, while the Doctor plots their escape. “’Is a terrible thing on the scaffold.’”

“Exactly. They want you dead just as much as the Time Lords do, if not more. The way they see it, you’re… you’re corrupting me, you’re corrupting the very universe by being in it. And they don’t think I am owed anything, especially not you. Even after everything… you’d think I… but no.”

“Do…” Clara begins, shaken by the sudden, fervent mania that has settled over the Doctor, whose eyes are now wild and whose jaw is now set with fury. “Do _you_ think I’m corrupting you and the universe?”

“No,” the Doctor shakes her head at once. “No, of course I don’t… I just… I don’t want you to trust this message. I don’t want you to think that it’s anything other than a ploy to make sure you go back to Trap Street.”

“Maybe I want to go back,” Clara chances, although she doesn’t, not really. She wants to see how the Doctor will react as she ploughs on: “Maybe I should.”

The Doctor freezes, eyes wide and stricken, and Clara feels an immediate surge of guilt. “ _Do_ you?” she whispers. “ _Do_ you want to go back?”

“No!” Clara says at once, holding up her hands as though in surrender. “No, I meant… hypothetically… you’re speaking as though you know what I want, and you don’t. You haven’t asked. You’re just assuming; you’re just guessing. And you don’t know what they want either; maybe they really _do_ want to help me.”

The Doctor snorts. “Yeah, right. I’ll take you to Karn when Hell freezes over.”

“You don’t need to take me anywhere,” Clara points out, arching an eyebrow in a silent challenge. “I’ve got my own TARDIS, remember?”

“Well then, I’ll _accompany_ you to Karn when Hell freezes over.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To go to Karn or not to go to Karn? That is the (first) question. And if the Doctor and Clara _do_ go, what will they find?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the wonderful response to this fic! Here it is... part 2!

There had been arguments.

Some of them had been small and inconsequential; minor disagreements that had fizzled out before they could even really get going, boiling up and dissipating like smoke while they’d made breakfast or read in the library or wandered around unfamiliar planets. Those had been the arguments that Clara had minded least; the ones that had started, flared, and then immediately been brushed aside in favour of this or that; a determined sentiment not to spoil the moment overriding all thoughts of conflict.

The biggest, most explosive argument had been in Clara’s TARDIS, who hadn’t approved. They’d screamed at each other across the console room, and then the Doctor had piloted them to an unknown destination and walked out of the ship, which had dematerialised obligingly the second the doors had closed. It was an obscure failsafe system, designed for when TARDISes had been taken into battle during the Time War, but Clara had felt only annoyance, and while she’d waited for the Doctor to come back, she’d ripped that particular circuit out. The fact that the TARDIS had permitted her to do so had clearly signalled the ship’s displeasure at her co-owner’s behaviour, and Clara had given the console a grateful pat.

Then there had been the market on Akhaten; Clara had wanted to revisit it, to see how the planet was faring after the two of them had vanquished the angry, parasitic creature the people there had worshipped as a god. They’d rowed as they browsed the stalls, passers-by growing increasingly more concerned-looking, before Clara had stormed off, finding herself in the old arena, solitary and crying on the stacked seating.

There had been the row in Sheffield, in front of the team; the two of them hurling words and accusations at each other across Yaz’s parents’ lounge while the team looked on in horror. That row had ended with them both in tears, and then when the team had picked sides to offer comfort to, there had been further arguments, more shouting, and a sulk which had lasted for four days. The apology flowers for Yaz’s family had been large and expensive, as had the bill for the trip to Space Florida to make things up to the team. They’d spent their minibreak in tense semi-silence, Clara’s hands shoved deep in her pockets as she’d spent the entire time resisting the urge to cry. She’d snapped at Yaz and Ryan and been chastised by Graham, and in the end had left them to it and retired to the Doctor’s TARDIS, where she’d skulked around in the library, reading the Encyclopaedia Gallifreya entries about Karn.

There had been argument after argument, to the point that both TARDISes took to dousing them in water if they raised their voices, and so their rows had become whispered and increasingly underhand, until they’d both burst into tears during a particularly bitter confrontation. After that, the ships had tried to keep them apart; Clara’s TARDIS had flung her to one side of the universe, and the Doctor’s took the Time Lady to the other. They’d spent two weeks apart, seething, before coming back together, retiring to Clara’s bedroom for eight hours, and then having another row.

Clara had had enough when she’d padded into her ship’s console room early that morning, already fully dressed, and placed her fingers into the telepathic circuits. The Doctor was across the galaxy in her own ship, putting down an uprising on Klom. Clara had been ruminating on the message for weeks now, and she’d finally decided to throw caution to the wind; she’d reasoned that there was no harm in _listening_ to Ohila and what she had to say, even if it turned out to be madness or nonsense.

“I know you know the way,” she’d whispered to the TARDIS, thinking hard of Ohila, and the ship had launched itself into flight with the utmost reluctance, as though it too was opposed to the idea of its owner returning to the lion’s den.

Now, as she stands on the shifting red sands of Karn, trying not to let herself hyperventilate, she has to admit that maybe this _is_ a bad idea after all. She supposes she ought to be grateful that she no longer has a heart to hammer out of control, and the thought elicits a strangled sort of half-laugh, half-sob from her as she looks around herself, over to the rocky vermillion crags in the distance which are hung with bright flags in myriad shades of red: carmine and maroon and burgundy and scarlet, each fluttering in the breeze which brushes over her skin, bringing a welcome coolness to the stifling heat of the strange planet.

Beside her, there’s a familiar noise, and a moment later, the Doctor’s TARDIS materialises. The two ships are incongruous splashes of colour on such a monochromatic planet, and when the Doctor steps out a moment later, the brightness of her outfit further marks her as an anachronism.

“So,” the Doctor begins with resignation, locking her ship behind her and then folding her arms. Her voice is hard, cold and dispassionate, but Clara can see how much self-control it’s taking for the Time Lady to keep her composure; knows the pain and fear that the tone of voice is intended to conceal. “You came.”

“How did you…”

The Doctor holds up a small, palm-sized device with wires crisscrossing the surface, a slightly guilty expression on her face. “Geo-proximity detector. The other half’s stuck under your console and set to Karn.”

“Oh,” Clara says dully. She supposes she ought to be angry about being tracked without her consent, but all she can feel is a surge of relief that she won’t have to do this – whatever _this_ is – alone. “Right.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then the Doctor reaches for her, pulling her into an awkward, bittersweet embrace. “I’m sorry,” the Time Lady murmurs, clinging to her as though afraid to let go. “I’m sorry, I am… I just…”

“I know,” Clara tells her, burrowing into the embrace and closing her eyes tightly, as though doing so might unmake the strange, disjointed situation they’ve found themselves in. “I know. But it’s like you said to me before… you’re here now though.”

“If they want you to go back…”

“Run like hell,” Clara interjects, her tone and expression determined. “That’s my plan.”

“Right,” the Doctor brightens a few degrees at the familiarity of the plan, and manages a grin. “Same old, same old, then?”

“Same old, same old,” Clara smiles briefly, giving her hand a quick squeeze. “Shall we?”

“Well, they’ll be expecting us. It’d be rude not to,” the Doctor concurs, and together they set off, striding across the brick-red expanse of sand between them and the Sisterhood of Karn.

“It’s very…” Clara looks around them; at the unchanging colour palette that makes up the land and the sky. It makes her eyes ache, and she squints in a bid to dissipate the discomfort. “Red.”

“Atmospheric composition. High occurrence of neon.”

“Neon is red?”

“Yeah,” the Doctor seems calmed by talking about science, so Clara lets her ramble. “Well, it’s sort of orangey-red, but it reacts with the hydrogen in the atmosphere and makes the sky look red. There’s a lot of iron in the planet’s composition too; it got thrown up from the core when the planet was formed, and so a lot of the geographical features of Karn are red, even the water.”

“And the Sisterhood wear red.”

“And the Sisterhood wear red. They weren’t originally from Karn, though; they were from Gallifrey, and they lived and worked there until their exile. So the joke at the Academy used to be that when they got kicked off our world, they picked a planet that most matched their aesthetic.”

“That’s a very human-y joke to make.”

“It may surprise you, but Time Lords were, despite their protestations, surprisingly ‘human-y,’ Clara.”

“Are aesthetics why you ended up on Earth?” Clara asks, elbowing her partner playfully to distract from the anxiety she can feel rising in her chest. “Blue box; blue planet?”

“Something like that,” the Doctor half-smiles at the weak joke. “Although I could’ve ended up on-”

Ahead of them, a figure has stepped out of the shelter of a rocky outcrop. Ohila stands staring at them, utterly impassive, and they lapse into silence under the force of her gaze. Only when they’ve come to a halt in front of her does she speak, and Clara has the sudden, irrational feeling of being called into the headmaster’s office for a dressing down.

“You’re late,” Ohila says sternly, looking between them with a glare. “I sent that hypercube months ago.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor grimaces, shoving her hands in her pockets and snapping instinctively into her guise of playing the fool: “Was a bit busy being in maximum security. It does limit one’s opportunities for social interaction, including RSVPing to invites. Sorry. Hope we haven’t missed any banging parties.”

“I’m not a human, Doctor,” Ohila’s eyes narrow in disapproval. “You cannot lie to me as you might to them. You listened to my message some time ago, and yet you have delayed coming to me. Why?”

“There were ah…” the Doctor’s expression slips, and she looks sidelong at Clara with a guilty expression. “Some disagreements.”

“About?”

“Coming here.”

“I see,” Ohila looks between the two of them, as though appraising the situation, and she arches one eyebrow delicately. “I ought to have expected as much, I suppose. The hybrid-”

“Don’t call us that,” Clara says with surprising force, breaking her silence and clenching her hands into fists at the mention of the word and the prophecy which had almost cost her and the Doctor everything. “We’re not… that is to say…”

“My child, I merely speak of you as the ancient prophecies speak of you.”

“And yet you’ve never proven it was us, have you?” Clara continues, her tone clear and cold as she raises her chin and meets Ohila’s gaze with steely composure. “You’re never definitively been able to prove or disprove anything, so just… don’t.”

“My child-”

“Don’t call me that,” Clara snaps, irritated by the diminutive title. “I might be a child to you, but I’m not a newborn infant; I’m not crawling around in the dust of this universe, banging rocks together. I’ve seen things and I’ve lived through things that would break most people, so don’t you dare treat me like a fool, or like I’m stupid. Don’t you dare try to belittle me and make me feel small. You invited me here, yeah? Well, where I come from, you treat guests with respect. I don’t know if it’s different with your people, or if you’re just such reclusive hermits that you’ve forgotten what it means to interact with beings other than your lofty selves, but you invited us here, so you will accord us the same respect.”

The Doctor shoots Clara a proud little smile, but Ohila merely continues to appraise her silently.

“Very well,” she says after a moment’s consideration, nodding slowly. “I apologise. You are but a child to me, although when you have lived for as many millennia as I have, all others begin to appear like mayflies. Even you, Doctor.”

“And that’s saying something,” the Doctor mutters, and Ohila’s mouth twitches into something that may or may not be a smile, fleeting though it is.

“I invited you for an important reason,” Ohila continues, her expression remaining unreadable. “One of which you are, of course, justifiably mistrustful.”

“You said you had… solved the problem,” Clara paraphrases tentatively, wondering for the thousandth time what that could mean. Back in the TARDIS, she has a notebook with suggestions written neatly in, although some of them are so outlandish that she’s sure they can’t possibly be an option. “And you could… fix me.”

“As a disclaimer,” the Doctor says with a brash sense of over-confidence which does nothing to disguise her nervousness. “If that something involves sending her back to Trap Street, then we will be leaving. Immediately.”

Clara looks over at the Doctor with exasperation. “I thought we _weren’t_ telling her the plan?”

“Oh,” the Doctor looks apologetic, wrinkling her nose guiltily. “Right. Yeah. Urm…”

“It does not involve sending her back to Trap Street,” Ohila assures them both. “With Gallifrey in ruins, the technology to do so is long-destroyed.”

“Oh,” the Doctor’s expression turns to one of relief, and a weight visibly lifts from her shoulders. “Right. OK.”

“Besides, it would not be… kind.”

“Excuse me,” the Doctor holds up one hand, similarly to how Clara’s students used to, and she fights the sudden urge to laugh. “Sorry, but urm, just in case you’d forgotten… you told me, back on Gallifrey, that I wasn’t entitled to any favours, or any… I don’t know, good karma. Those were your exact words. That I didn’t deserve anything; that I wasn’t owed anything.”

“On Gallifrey you were behaving as a reckless, spoilt child would, clinging to your companion as an infant would cling to its comfort blanket during a tantrum. You were irrational, driven entirely by your emotions, and without the counterpoint of logic. On Gallifrey, too, you were not the last of your kind. Now things have changed. _You_ have changed. You are, again, the Last of the Time Lords…”

“And, what?” the Doctor interjects, narrowing her eyes suspiciously, and Clara can see how much the reminder has stung her. “The Sisterhood feel sorry for me?”

“We believe that it would be compassionate to permit you to have something joyous. Something positive.”

Clara frowns, as does the Doctor.

“What does that mean?” Clara asks bluntly, unwilling to play Ohila’s games. “What do you mean, ‘something joyous, something positive’?”

“Come with me, and I will explain,” Ohila says simply, turning and beginning to walk away, expecting them to follow. The Doctor reaches again for Clara’s hand, and together they trail after the High Priestess tentatively, wondering what precisely she might be about to inform them or offer them that could be so ‘compassionate’. They follow her into the cave system of the Sisterhood, where acolytes and attendants are striding along twisted, naturally-formed corridors bearing heavy tomes in their arms or clutching glass bottles and strange objects Clara cannot name. The whole place is suffused with an innate feeling of knowledge and power, and is intimidating in its strangeness; those they pass stare at them with wide-eyed awe which makes Clara feel self-conscious, and she wonders what these strangers know of her that she does not.

Eventually, Ohila leads them into a roughly circular cavern, at the centre of which burns a bright orange flame that springs directly from the floor. Dancing patterns cast by the light spangle the mismatched artwork daubed onto the walls, and as Ohila enters, two acolytes standing at the periphery of the chamber bow their heads respectfully and excuse themselves, deferential in the face of their High Priestess.

“That’s…” the Doctor is staring at the flame with awe, and she gravitates towards it subconsciously, crouching to examine it. There’s something so childlike in her amazement that Clara feels some of her nerves dissipate, and she smiles at the Time Lady’s enthusiasm. “That’s the Sacred Flame.”

“That is correct.”

The Doctor looks up at Ohila with a teasing grin, momentarily distracted. “Remember when I unblocked the system with a firecracker?”

Ohila’s expression breaks into a true smile for the first time, and the expression is oddly disconcerting on her wizened, ancient face. “I was just a postulant, but yes, I remember. The fireworks, both literal and metaphorical, were rather spectacular.”

“Does it need cleaning out again?” the Doctor asks, leaning down to examine it and then looking around the room, her eyes alighting on the paintings on the bare rock walls with interest. “It looks healthy enough to me.”

“No, that is not why I have brought you here,” Ohila looks between them, before addressing the Doctor as though Clara were not present: “The reason I have brought you both here concerns the girl. As I said in my message, we have, as it were, solved it.”

“‘It’?” Clara asks, feeling affronted not be spoken to about her own fate. “What’s ‘it’? Me?”

“In a sense, yes. Tell me, Miss Oswald, what do you understand of Time?”

“Urm,” Clara frowns, wrongfooted by the question. “I’m going to need you to be…”

“Time,” Ohila continues in a lofty tone. “The great concept of Time, as it passes and fluctuates, ebbs and flows.”

“I understand,” Clara begins slowly, feeling irrationally as though she’s being tested on the subject and that there may be a right or wrong answer. “That it isn’t linear.”

“Good.” Ohila seems to expect more from her, and Clara’s feeling of being called in by the headmaster intensifies.

“I understand that it’s complex,” she continues, choosing her words carefully. “And that moving through time requires a large amount of energy.”

“And why is that?”

“Because… I don’t know,” Clara guesses aloud: “Because it’s effortful? Because it’s difficult to do?”

“Again,” Ohila raises her eyebrows, seeming pleased by her answer and yet expecting more from her. “Do you know why that is?"

“No,” Clara admits in a small voice, hating having to admit her ignorance on the matter. “I’m guessing… well… is it because it’s complicated?”

“No,” Ohila shakes her head, but her expression is gentle. “It is because moving through Time is not like moving through air, or water, or anything else you may encounter that requires traversing. You cannot simply push your way through it, moving aside the atoms or molecules as you might any other substance. When you move through other mediums, their very structure slides past you. The substance does not touch you; it does not corrupt you. It may _temporarily_ alter you – for instance, water may make you wet; mud may make you sticky – but it does not inherently change who or what you are. The atoms which make up you and the atoms which make up the substance do not interact. They do not exchange. They do not, in a word, react.”

“Right,” Clara nods, looking over at the Doctor, who is nodding along as she listens, although she seems unaware of doing so. As Clara looks over at her, she moves away from the Sacred Flame and begins to examine a large painting on the wall beside her. Clara knows she is still listening by her body language, but she feels fractionally resentful not to have the Time lady’s full attention, and tries not to let it show.

“Time is not like other substances,” Ohila explains. “To put it quite simply, when you move through Time – and I do not here mean the passage of the days, or the minutes, or the hours; I do not mean the time that is ticking away as we stand here; I mean Time, with a capital T, to mean the very essence of Time itself – then it reacts to you, just as you react to it. It shapes your cells; it changes them.”

“What, when you travel in a TARDIS, you mean?” Clara frowns, not understanding quite what Ohila is suggesting. “Are you saying that travelling in the TARDIS is changing me?”

“No,” Ohila shakes her head again. “One of the reasons that Time is so difficult to navigate is that one has to build a capsule or ship to serve as a bio-dampener. It must not only allow _you_ to move through Time; it must prevent Time from moving through _you_. The Time Lords, when they created the first TARDISes, managed to build vessels to carry them through the Vortex and emerge unscathed, untouched by Time itself. Oh, there are exceptions of course; artron energy leaks, twists of fate; complete biological accidents-”

“You can just say River’s name,” the Doctor interjects drily from across the room, her back to them as she admires a large frieze which seems to depict a scene from the Time War. “I won’t mind.”

“Well, River’s… ah… conception was, in itself, unorthodox. The Time Lords never factored in… there was no consideration of… biology was not… well, moving on,” Ohila’s cheeks flush briefly, and Clara fights the urge to giggle. This great, powerful woman is embarrassed by the mere mention of something entirely normal to humanity; the idea is laughable. “The reason so few other races have moved through Time is that they have been less successful in protecting themselves from its ravages. That is why your people, Clara, have not yet achieved it; the technology does not yet exist to move them through Time, nor to protect them from it.”

“Right. What does this have to do with…”

“You remember, do you not, the planet Trenzalore?”

“Of course.”

“And you remember the fissure in Time that you saw there?”

“The Doctor’s timestream?” Clara looks over at the Doctor, who is still admiring a painting but whose tense shoulders betrays her worry, then back at Ohila. “Yeah, of course.”

“And you remember stepping into it, shattering yourself across time and space? A million versions of you, living and dying across the universe?”

“It’s…” Clara hesitates, wondering how honest to be with the High Priestess. “I remember doing it, stepping into the timestream, but I don’t remember… _that_. It’s like my mind wants to spare me from it.”

“As it would,” Ohila notes, nodding gravely. “It would want to spare you the pain of your DNA being rewritten.”

Clara and the Doctor both freeze, and the Time Lady turns back to them slowly.

“My… what?”

“As I said,” Ohila continues, as though unaware of the impact her words are having. “Time is not inert; Time reacts with your cells. Time makes you and unmakes you. And in your case, it unmade you.”

“But I’m here, I’m standing right here, and-”

“You are standing there, my dear, but not as a human being.”

“Of course I’m human,” Clara scoffs, but she can feel apprehension rising in her chest. “What else would I be?”

“No…” the Doctor breathes, her eyes wide and terrified and fixed on Ohila as she speaks, her mouth falling open in horror. “No… she can’t be…”

“Time Lord.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of Ohila's revelation, Clara and the Doctor struggle to grasp the consequences... or believe her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the wonderful comments so far! Let’s see how Ohila’s revelation goes down...

“No,” the Doctor whispers, starting to shake her head violently, then, repeating her denial of seconds before: “No, she can’t be. She _can’t_ be.”

“She can be,” Ohila says calmly. “And she is. When she jumped into the timestream of a Time Lord, what did you think would happen? Time looked her in the face, and Time decided that the only person bold enough to enter the timestream of a Time Lord must _be_ a Time Lord. But the biology didn’t fit – only one heart, brief lifespan, breakable body – and so Time did what it does best; it reacted. It interfered. It made her what it thought she ought to be.”

“Excuse me,” Clara interjects, her head spinning; the sheer implausibility of the notion threatening to overwhelm her. “Sorry, but I’m not… I think I’d have noticed. I think my GP would have noticed. I think, in general, someone – most likely me – would have noticed having two hearts.”

“You never wondered why the Doctor’s TARDIS suddenly seemed to like you?”

“Because I saved his life!”

“You never wondered why you felt so drawn to travelling through time and space?”

“It was an escape!”

“You say you would have noticed the change, and yet I have studied your movements after Trenzalore, and what the two of you faced. You were forced to deal with the attempted invasion of the Zygons, were you not?”

“Yes.”

“And during their attack, you travelled by vortex manipulator?”

“Yes, but…”

“And you never told her that it ought to have killed her?” Ohila looks over at the Doctor with disapproval. “Humans ought not to attempt time travel without a capsule. The consequences…”

“I was… distracted,” the Doctor mutters, looking abruptly ashamed. “It didn’t seem…”

“After the Zygons came a return to Trenzalore, and then the Doctor’s regeneration. You were kept busy by that, were you not, Miss Oswald? Relearning the man you knew, relearning all that you thought you knew?”

“Yes, but…”

“And then, just as you found stable ground, came the sudden loss of your romantic partner…”

“And being checked over by my doctor, yes, when I went in to see her with stress and depression,” Clara raises her chin defiantly, folding her arms across her chest in disbelief. Her hands are shaking at the mention of Danny; she tucks them into her armpits and sets her jaw in a bid to stop her voice from trembling. “And he noticed nothing unusual, so I don’t see how… I don’t understand how…”

“The growth of an additional organ takes time. Did you never wonder, after your time on Skaro, as you ran around the universe with the Doctor, proclaiming yourselves not to be the Hybrid, why you felt everything in so much detail? Why the universe seemed to be in technicolour, where once it was merely black and white?”

“I’d been depressed; I was recovering, I…”

“Ohila, it’s not possible!” the Doctor protests, shoving her hands in her pockets and narrowing her eyes suspiciously at the High Priestess. “I’d have noticed… the TARDIS would have noticed…”

“And yet it would not be first time you have not recognised another of your kind; not the first time you have proven yourself oblivious to the proximity of a fellow Time Lord. How many times has Koschei deceived you? How many times did you overlook the Corsair, or Romana, or the Rani?”

“That’s different,” the Doctor mutters, her cheeks burning even in the red glow of the room. “That’s not the same…”

“How is it not the same?” Ohila asks sharply. “You have failed to notice your own people time and time again; why would you fail to notice the one who has so turned your head?”

Clara feels her own cheeks colour. “I have not…”

“It is not meant as an insult, my dear. To see the Doctor’s head turned is to see them vulnerable, yes, but happy.”

“And now she’s the Last of the Time Lords, you want… what? To tell her these lies so that she’ll have some hope?” Clara half-shouts, anger and injustice boiling up inside of her. “That’s cruelty; wilful cruelty. It’s not true – of course it’s not true. How could I be a Time Lord? How could I stand on Gallifrey and they not know me as one of them?”

“Your hearts had ceased to beat, and your mind… oh, that mind. The brain of a Time Lord is a marvellous thing, but you were still unaware of yourself. Still unsure. You have not seen it yet, either, I think; that your brain is bigger on the inside. The obliviousness of it all… “ Ohila shakes her head with an air of condescension. “On Gallifrey, they would have seen only the noisy chatter of a human mind, because that was all they expected to see.”

“Because I _am_ human! There’s one heart in my chest; one, and if it’ll stop you then I’ll… I’ll…”

“What?” Ohila looks at her with dispassionate bemusement. “Slice yourself open from side to side? I would not permit it, and the Doctor certainly would not. There is no way to disprove it, my dear, so I will give you a chance to prove it, shall I? In my message, I said I could fix you. And that much is certainly true, for we can…”

“No,” the Doctor says at once, shaking her head, and something about the fear and anger in her eyes unsettles Clara as she wonders what Ohila could be alluding to. “No, I know what you want to do, and I forbid it, Ohila.”

“You would not see her saved?”

“No, because… because these words! These ideas! You’re mad; you’ve actually turned insane out here. All of your little cult holed up together in your caves with your Sacred Flame… it’s not any wonder that your sanity has taken leave of you, is it? Clara isn’t a Time Lord. I’d know. I’d feel it. I’d have…”

“You are a fool, Doctor, and a blind one at that. I can save her life; I can-”

“ _I forbid you to give her the Elixir!_ ” the Doctor roars, with a vehemence that surprises them all, and the words echo around the small space ominously. “Do you understand me?”

“What’s the Elixir?” Clara asks in a small voice, as the Doctor and Ohila face each other down, the Doctor’s chest rising and falling with fury as she does so. “Elixir of what?”

“The Elixir of Life,” Ohila explains, as the Doctor shakes her head furiously and Ohila looks past her at Clara. “It gives extended life, but in the case of Time Lords… it can raise the dead or help them to regenerate in circumstances in which it would usually be impossible. It helped the Doctor-”

“No, no, no, no, no…” the Doctor mutters repeatedly, hands thrust deep into her pockets, and she turns away, as though by doing so she might be able to deny what Ohila is saying.

“-once, when they were too far gone to regenerate themselves. And it could help you.”

“But I’m not a Time Lord.”

“That is your assertion,” Ohila says simply. “Not mine. I have laid my evidence before you; if you disavow it, then that is your choice, and it is your right to do so.”

“And if I take the Elixir and you’re wrong? What if I don’t regenerate?”

“Nothing,” Ohila says, at the same time that the Doctor says: “You’ll die.”

“Sorry?” Clara frowns, looking between them in confusion; the two women scowling at each other with absolute vitriol. “You _just_ said it gives extended life.”

“Yes,” the Doctor says furiously, her temper beginning to fray. “By bringing people back from the brink. Don’t you understand, Clara? It would restart your heart, but you would still die months or years down the line. Unless you stayed here on Karn, taking it regularly… you… you would die.”

“Oh,” Clara blinks hard, trying to appear braver than she feels as she asks tentatively: “Well, staying here would be better than dying, surely?”

“I can’t…” the Doctor clenches her hands into fists, looking away from Clara as she says with ferocity: “I won’t lose you. Not again.”

“Your lack of trust in me is wounding, Doctor,” Ohila says with disgust. “You think, after all this time…”

“You think I would trust you to give her what turned me into a warrior? What turned me into a man I’d rather forget? God knows what it would do to Clara; god knows what would happen to her…”

“I’d be alive,” Clara reasons. “With a beating heart.”

“Is that so important to you that you would sacrifice everything we have?” the Doctor asks her, her tone incredulous. “That you would either come with me and ask me to watch you age, wither and fade; or you would leave me and remain here? I know you would find that dull; I know you would hate it. You’d be bored – the cult life isn’t for you, it’s slow and mundane and repetitive. You’re asking me, Clara, to lose you, one way or another, and I won’t do it. You’re not taking the Elixir; we’re leaving.”

She reaches for Clara’s arm and attempts to pull her away from Ohila, but Clara stands her ground, tensing up to avoid the Doctor’s tugging.

“No,” she says softly, but the words are thick with anger. “You don’t get to make that choice for me.”

“Clara, don’t be…”

“You don’t get to make decisions about my body; nobody gets to do that but me. Nobody gets to make choices for me; nobody gets to say what I can and can’t do. Having a beating heart might not be important to you – you’ve got two of them, after all. But for me it’s a reminder every day of what I once was and what I’m not now; that I’m caught between life and death like a freak of nature. Why won’t you let me try it? There would be ways to make it work, I’m sure of it. Ways that don’t involve me losing you. From what I understand, the only reason you would have to lose me is…”

“The pain of watching you die,” the Doctor finishes for her. “You’re asking me to either watch you die in slow motion, or to leave you here with these people. Yes, you might be able to leave Karn with me. You might be able to have the odd day out, here or there; but the Elixir isn’t long-lasting. It’s not a solution to a problem; it’s not infinite in its reach. You’d have a few days at most, and you’re… you’re like a drug to me. You know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t be able to give you up; I wouldn’t be able to bring you back. And each time we left here… each time, there would be the risk of harm. The risk of injury. The risk of… of that, of losing you forever. How could I do that? How could I take those chances?”

“You take them every day with the team.”

“That’s different,” the Doctor shakes her head at the accusation. “That’s… they don’t… they don’t have my hearts.”

“And I don’t have _a_ heart at all.”

“Please,” the Doctor implores her, the fire of moments earlier suddenly quenched as she looks at Clara with overt desperation. “Please don’t…”

“Your lack of trust in me is truly insulting,” Ohila interjects, her voice level but laden with indignation. “You really doubt the knowledge of the Sisterhood of Karn? The only survivors of the great civilisation of Gallifrey?”

“Oh yes,” the Doctor says at once with venom. “After what they did to me, you really think I’d trust you?”

“So that’s the other alternative?” Clara wonders aloud, looking at first the Doctor and then the High Priestess. “Ageing with the you; staying here; or… Ohila being right, in which case… I regenerate?”

“I refuse to believe her.”

“Well, you would,” Clara rolls her eyes, frustrated by her stubborness. “Doctor, what if she’s right? Ohila, how long have you studied this? How sure are you?”

“There is little doubt. Perhaps a margin of less than one in a billion.”

“Doctor…” Clara looks over at her partner with tears in her eyes. “Would it hurt to try it?”

“Yes,” the Doctor whispers, her bottom lip quivering. “Yes, it would.”

She turns and walks from the cavern before either of them can speak again, and once she is gone, Ohila reaches into her robes and extracts two small bottles. One is full of a cloudy white substance; the other with a shimmering golden liquid that appears to be radiating light. She hands both to Clara, then wraps her palms around Clara’s own.

“The white one first, to save you. Then the golden to change you. The second is a variation of the first, and far more important.”

She gives Clara’s hands a last squeeze and then leaves the chamber in pursuit of the Doctor, and Clara looks down at the bottles in her hands. Neither of them are large – about the size of miniature bottles of alcohol, but with fair more significance. The cloudy white liquid swirls strangely as Clara tilts the bottle to examine it, while the gold liquid seems to glow all the more brightly now that she is holding it, as though in response to her touch.

Would it be so wrong to take them now, while the Doctor is absent? There is no longer anyone present to voice opposition to her actions; no longer anyone to angrily assert that she ought to take more care with herself. No one to tell her that her actions are wrong; no one to caution her; no one to weep as her humanity is either regained or lost for good.

The thought of truly living again is intoxicating. Having a heart – or, although she feels silly for entertaining the notion, heart _s_ – beating in her chest is overwhelming. Would dying, truly dying, be so bad if she were able to live first? The Doctor had to be wrong; there would be a way to make it work; a way to save her. That’s what the Doctor does, has always done; save others. Undoubtedly, there _is_ a way to save her, and she wonders whether that lays out in the cosmos or here in this cave, in the two bottles she holds in her hands.

The possible outcomes play out before her.

A life well-lived, before fading away in the Doctor’s arms.

A life spent on Karn, stealing away with her Time Lord and the blue box when she can.

Or…

A life spent with the Doctor, if Ohila is correct, and while Clara wants to mistrust her, there’s something so raw and honest about the High Priestess’s tale that Clara is almost entirely convinced that she’s telling the truth.

There’s only one way to be sure, and she sits on the floor and uncorks the first bottle with shaking hands, watching as the liquid within starts to smoke discernibly as it’s exposed to the air. It’s vaguely alarming, but upon sniffing it there is a faint smell only of something akin to mint, and it reassures Clara as she raises the bottle to her mouth.

She tips it back and swallows it in one fluid motion, as behind her an utterly distraught voice cries:

“ _No!_ ”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara has made her choice, and now the Doctor must live with that. Or must she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as ever for all the wonderful comments! Here’s part 4...

The Doctor can only stare in anguish as Clara knocks back the white liquid then sets down the empty bottle. It’s like watching her drink poison; and the Doctor falls to the uneven floor of the cavern, ignoring the pain as her knees hit the rock and beginning to keen, burying her face in her hands as though doing so might conceal some of her sorrow from the woman in front of her or the High Priestess stood behind her.

Human. Clara is human again. It’s all she can think about; the thought is all-consuming and pervasive and agonising. How could she be so selfish as to reject her functional immortality in favour of a heart that beats, yes, but will fade and die? How could that be so important to her that she would sacrifice everything they have?

Ohila is wrong; there’s no chance that the timestream altered anything. Surely she would have noticed some small, imperceptible change in Clara, particularly with the amount of time they’d spent together in those last few years pre-Trap Street; it would have been an impossibility to fail to notice if her companion had become one of her own species. Yet that is precisely what Ohila is suggesting; the very idea is so impossible that she continues to dismiss it outright.

After all that she and Clara have been through together, their future is gone. A few years is now all they’re destined to have; a mere flash of time in a cruel, hard-hearted universe that seems steadfastly determined to keep them apart and destroy their fragile happiness. After everything the two of them have lost, she is now going to lose the last bastion of all that’s holding her together; lose one of the last sparks of hope that she has after what had happened on Gallifrey all those months before. She’s going to lose Clara, and then there’s the thought of having to break the news to those around them, starting with the team. The thought is painful, and she tries to push it aside; tries to ignore the fact that Ryan, Graham and Yaz had thought they’d lost her, but instead they’re about to have Clara torn away from them. Mortality can be cruel.

A hand reaches out of nowhere and she knocks it aside without raising her head. She doesn’t want to be touched by either of the people in the chamber with her; she wants to be left alone to grieve a future she now cannot have, rather than being drawn into awkward embraces with someone she hardly knows or forced to hold the woman whose decision has robbed them of an infinite life together. And yet the hand grabs her again and grips her wrist insistently, dragging it over, and the Doctor looks up as her palm makes contact with Clara’s sternum and she feels…

An impossibility.

There it is; the quadruple pulse of a Time Lord.

“But that’s…” she looks up at Clara then, her hearts soaring, before turning and gaping at Ohila is disbelief. “That’s not possible.”

“I told you,” Ohila says with impatience. “My sisters and I have spent many years studying Miss Oswald. We were not wrong in our conclusions, as you can see.”

The Doctor looks at Clara with staggering joy, wanting to pull her close and kiss her but still half-caught in the anger of a moment before and the uncertainty of what, precisely, this means for them both. As Clara beams at her, the Doctor feels her spirits lift and an optimism beset her, and she grins back at her with excitement. They no longer need to run. They no longer need to look over their shoulders. They no longer need to worry about mortality, or the technicalities of being caught between heartbeats.

Beneath the Doctor’s palm, Clara’s hearts suddenly stutter uncomfortably as though in response to her thought, and Clara doubles over in pain, letting out an involuntary cry of agony, and the Doctor feels a spike of panic as Clara’s eyes slide out of focus.

“What’s wrong?” she asks at once, removing her hand from Clara’s chest and taking hold of her gently by the upper arms, moving her head to try and encourage Clara to focus on her face. “Clara?”

There’s no response, and beneath her hands, her partner goes limp.

“Clara?!” the Doctor asks again, more urgently this time, shaking her gently in a bid to elicit a response. When there is none, she takes Clara gently in her arms, propping her head against her chest and trying again: “Clara, what’s…”

“Her cells have been starved of oxygen for many years now.”

Ohila’s words seem to come from a great distance away.

“Her cells, now her hearts are beating again, are dying. Her body is severely damaged at a molecular level.”

“But she’s not… she’s been in suspended animation, surely, all this time?” the Doctor asks, looking over at Ohila with tears in her eyes. “Not ageing, not changing… her cells ought to be fine, they ought to be…”

“They’ve been deprived of oxygen for so long, Doctor, that they’ve ceased to function. Even the Time Lords of Gallifrey need to breathe, or had you forgotten that?”

“So she needs to regenerate,” the Doctor realises with dawning comprehension. She wonders whether Clara knows how; wonder whether it’s an intrinsic part of her now, as it is for the Doctor. She looks down at the prone woman in her arms, now barely conscious, and gives her another gentle shake, remembering, against her will, another place and another Time Lord in her arms, begging them to do the same. “Clara, come on. Regenerate.”

“You know that’s impossible, Doctor. Damage at such an intrinsic level renders it impossible,” Ohila raises her head defiantly. “She must take the second bottle of Elixir, or else she will die.”

“Yes,” the Doctor latches onto the idea with desperation, reaching into Clara’s still-closed hand and retrieving the bottle of golden liquid, uncorking it and watching it shine in response to her touch. “Clara, come on…”

She places the bottle to Clara’s lips and tips it up, allowing the liquid to trickle into her partner’s mouth, watching to make sure she has swallowed every drop before casting the spent vessel aside and cradling Clara more securely against her chest, stroking her hair and murmuring quiet reassurances to her.

“Is it going to…” the Doctor whispers, looking up at Ohila with wide, fearful eyes as Clara lays inert and heavy in her arms, her breathing growing shallower and shallower. “Will she suffer?”

“She is not you,” Ohila says drily, arching an eyebrow. “I very much doubt her regeneration will be so… messy.”

The Doctor remembers then what she had learnt on Gallifrey all those months before, and for the first time she feels grateful to Tecteun as she looks down at Clara, who opens her eyes and smiles. All the years of experimentation; all the pillaging of her natural abilities; if it means that Clara will live then feels a brief stab of gratitude amongst the bitterness.

“I feel better,” Clara says brightly and without warning, attempting to sit up and then falling back into the Doctor’s embrace with a cry of surprise as her arms fail her. “What’s…”

“Don’t you remember?” the Doctor asks, feeling a stirring of sorrow at the memory. “On Trenzalore… when I was young again?”

“I’m not young again,” Clara notes, and the Doctor smiles sadly. “Thank god. I feel better though.”

“You’re going to regenerate,” the Doctor tells her, and she fights the sudden, irrational urge to cry as she realises then what that truly means. In a few moments, Clara will be a different woman – or perhaps a man – and they will have to rebuild their relationship from the foundations up. For the fourth time, their dynamic will change, and they will have to take time to learn each other anew. Nothing will change, and yet everything will; there will be new subtleties to negotiate, new ways of speaking and thinking and doing and being. “That’s why.”

As though reading her mind, panic suddenly overcomes Clara, who begins to hyperventilate in earnest, and the Doctor cradles her against her chest, wanting to hold onto this moment forever. The Doctor and Clara; the two of them, against the universe.

“But… I’m… Doctor, promise me…” Clara begs, clinging to her coat with shaking fingertips as her breath continues to come in short, effortful pants and gasps. “Promise me you’ll still love me.”

“Of course I’ll still love you,” the Doctor says in a low, fierce voice, pressing a kiss to Clara’s forehead. “Always. Always, always, always. That will never change. I swear to you, that will never, ever change.”

“Even when _I_ do?”

“Even when you do,” the Doctor realises then that she’s crying, and she presses more kisses to Clara’s face; to her temples, to her forehead, to her cheeks, to her lips, no longer caring about decorum or Ohila’s presence, instead intent on ensuring that the memory of this will soothe Clara in the days to come. “I promise you, Clara.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No,” the Doctor lies, because it seems far kinder than telling her the truth, as Clara raises her hand and notices the golden glow building up around her fingers. “Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”

“But you were so… so… _oh_ …”

Ohila cries out in warning, but the Doctor refuses to let go of Clara.

There’s a blinding golden flash.

And then nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Doctor returns to consciousness, she can think of only one thing: Clara. Who will she have become? And will she still want the Doctor?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who’s stuck with this fic from the beginning... it’s one I’m very proud of! I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

“Has anyone ever told you,” a bright voice asks from somewhere above the Doctor, and the sound assails her ears. “That you’re a bloody idiot?”

Everything hurts. Her head is pounding uncomfortably, and there’s a tingling in her extremities that feels foreboding. Nausea is churning in her stomach, and she feels as though the room is spinning around her, even with her eyes closed

“Holding onto a regenerating Time Lord is foolish, even for you, Doctor,” a disapproving voice says. “Stay there. I would counsel against moving.”

The Doctor opens her eyes with some difficulty, blinking hard until her vision clears. She’s crumpled on her back on the floor of a red-hued cavern, and after a few seconds of considerable concentration, her memory returns.

Karn.

Clara.

The regeneration.

The sits bolt upright and the throbbing in her head spikes at once; she falls back onto the floor of the cavern with a yelp of pain, clutching her hands to her temples and groaning aloud.

“Idiot,” the same bright voice says. “What did Ohila say?”

And then there she is, crouching in front of her, entirely unchanged: Clara Oswald. Still five foot two, still with enormous hazel eyes that seem to inflate when she looks over at the Doctor with exasperation. Still smiling fondly at her.

“You…” the Doctor begins, but is unable to say anything more. Instead, she reaches for Clara with shaking hands, ghosting her fingertips over her cheeks and then settling them against her pulse point, feeling a thunderously strong double heartbeat.

“Do you really think, Doctor, we would not give her some say in the matter?” Ohila asks, as Clara lays her hands over the Doctor’s and gives her an encouraging grin. “That we would not permit her to make a choice?”

“I woke up and I was still me. You liar, by the way,” Clara punches her lightly on the shoulder, and the Doctor lets out a feeble, half-hearted protestation. “It _did_ hurt, a lot.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor mumbles, grimacing guiltily. “Seemed…”

“Kinder to lie? Yeah, fair point. You probably should have let go of me, by the way. Ohila says you’ve got Secondhand Regeneration Sickness. It’ll pass, but don’t go swimming for a couple of hours. And maybe don’t try standing up or moving, you idiot. I don’t want you vomiting on me… or on the Sacred Flame.”

“I can’t believe you’re…” the Doctor lunges forwards and throws her arms around Clara, holding her close and burying her face in her hair, taking in the smell and the feel of her and the strong, strident double pulse thundering through Clara’s veins. “You’re alive. And you’re…”

“Going to need a signature jacket now,” Clara muses, wrinkling her nose mischievously. “I know.”

“I love you,” the Doctor murmurs, quietly enough for only Clara to hear. “So much. I really thought I was going to… to…”

“Hey,” Clara says firmly, pulling back and meeting the Doctor’s gaze with her own, and shaking her head minutely. “No. Don’t start thinking about the almosts. You didn’t lose me; I’m right here. And I love you, you idiot.”

The Doctor presses her forehead against Clara’s, taking long, shuddering breaths as she tries to battle her headache into submission, and as Clara smiles softly at her, she exhales a shimmering cloud of energy that hangs in the air between them for a moment, before dissolving into the Doctor’s skin before she can protest. She feels the pain is her head lessen at once, but she rolls her eyes all the same, faintly disapproving of Clara’s seeming squandering of her regeneration energy. Clara only tips her a wink, then presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth; a promise of things to come.

“Ohila,” the Doctor croaks after a moment, looking up at the High Priestess, who is watching them both with an expression akin to great fondness and satisfaction. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“It is our pleasure,” Ohila says, nodding her head solemnly. “The Last Two Time Lords. You have great power, great responsibility, and…”

“Oh, my _god_ ,” Clara’s eyes widen. “The team are going to go _mental_.”


End file.
